The number of suicides decreased further in 2015

According to Statistics Finland’s
statistics on causes of death, altogether 731 suicides were
committed in Finland in 2015, which is around 60 fewer than in the
year before. Suicide mortality has decreased by 40 per cent in
fifteen years. Suicides have decreased most among men aged 35 to
44. However, men still committed clearly more suicides than women:
of those who committed suicide, three out of four were men. Most
suicides in relative terms were committed by men aged 45 to 54 and
aged 75 or over.

Suicide mortality 1970 to 2015

The number of suicides has decreased clearly from the top
figures of 1990, when there were over 1,500 suicides in Finland.
Since then, suicide mortality has decreased almost continuously
according to statistics. In 2015, suicide mortality was 40 per cent
lower than 15 years ago. However, nearly three times as many
persons died of suicides than in traffic accidents. In 2015, among
one hundred thousand Finns, 13 committed suicide (21 among men and
six among women).

Most suicides in relative terms were committed by men aged 45
to 54 and aged 75 or over

The relative number of suicides has decreased since 2000 in all
age groups. Among men, suicide mortality decreased most in the age
group 35 to 44 and least in the age group 55 to 64. Differences
between age groups in suicide mortality have narrowed. In 2015,
most suicides per 100,000 inhabitants were committed by men aged 45
to 54 and aged 75 or over. Among women, suicide mortality was
highest in the age group 45 to 54 and lowest in the age group 15 to
24. The median average age of men who committed suicide was 48
years and of women 51 years.

Men’s suicide mortality by age group in 2000
and 2015

In 2015, the share of suicides in all causes of death was only
one per cent. However, suicides are a central cause of death for
young people. One in three persons aged 20 to 29 that died had
committed suicide and one in six of those aged 35 to 44. The share
of suicides in causes of death for young people is high because
other mortality among young people is low. One in ten of all those
having committed a suicide was a young person aged under 25 and one
in five was aged over 65.

Despite the downward trend in suicide mortality, Finland is
still an exception among Nordic and western countries. According to
Eurostat’s statistics, the suicide mortality in Finland of
the population aged under 65 was around 1.5 times higher than the
EU average in 2013. By contrast, for persons aged 65 and over,
suicide mortality in Finland did not differ from the EU
average.

One in five of women and one in ten of men died from
dementia

In 2015, altogether 52,300 persons died. The average age at
death (median) was 85 years for women and 76 years for men. In
2015, thirty-seven per cent of all deaths were caused by diseases
of the circulatory system and 24 per cent by neoplasms. The most
common disease of the circulatory system was ischaemic heart
disease, which caused around one-fifth of all deaths. The most
common types of cancer leading to death for men were lung cancer
and prostate cancer, and correspondingly for women breast cancer
and lung cancer.

Altogether 8,600 persons died from dementia, including
Alzheimer's disease, which represented 16 per cent of all deaths.
The number of deaths caused by dementia has grown rapidly in the
past decade partly due to the ageing of the population. One in five
deaths among women and one in ten deaths among men were caused by
dementia. More than double the amount of women die of dementia than
the amount of men, which is mainly because women live longer than
men. There are no clear differences in age-standardised dementia
mortality among genders (Figure 5).

Number of persons that died from alcohol-related causes
decreased from 2014

Close on 1,700 persons died of alcohol-related diseases and
alcohol poisonings in 2015, which is nearly 200 lower than in the
previous year. The share of alcohol-related causes in all deaths
was three per cent. The majority of those dying of alcohol, three
out of four, were men. Persons who died from alcohol-related causes
are older than before. During the past ten years, mortality from
alcohol among both men and women aged 65 or over has grown while in
younger age groups it has decreased. The median average age of both
men and women in alcohol-related causes of death was 61 years.

In 2015, nearly 2,200 persons died of accidents, being four per
cent of deaths, when alcohol poisonings are included in
alcohol-related deaths in the time series classification. The
number of fatalities from accidents was 65 fewer than in the year
before. The number of deaths from accidents has slowly and almost
continuously fallen since 2004, when 2,600 persons died from
accidents.